“Do you see,” he said, triumphantly to the book-keeper—“do you see that I was right? Mr. Palm is at home, and will help me.”
“I will help you if I can,” said Palm, kindly. “What does your debt amount to?”
“Ah, Mr. Palm, I owe my landlord a quarter’s rent, amounting to twenty florins. But if you should be so generous as to give me half that sum, it would be enough, for the landlord has promised to wait three months, provided I paid him now ten florins.”
“You shall have the ten florins,” said Palm. “Mr. Bertram, pay this man ten florins, and charge them to me.”
“Oh, Mr. Palm, how kind you are!” exclaimed the beggar, joyfully. “How shall I ever be able to thank you for what you have done for me to-day?”
“Thank me by being industrious and making timely provision for your wife and child, in order not to be again reduced to such distress,” said Palm, nodding kindly to the stranger, and returning to the adjoining room.
With the ten florins which the book-keeper had paid to him, the beggar hastened into the street. No sooner had he left the threshold of Palm’s house than the melancholy and despairing air disappeared from his face, which now assumed a scornful and malicious mien. With hasty steps he hurried over to St. Sebald’s church, to the pillar yonder, behind which two men, wrapped in their cloaks, were to be seen.
“Mr. Palm is at home,” said the beggar, grinning. “Go into the store, cross it and enter the adjoining sitting-room—there you will find him. I have spied it out for you, and now give me my pay.”
“First we must know whether you have told us the truth,” said one of the men. “It may be all false.”
“But I tell you I have seen him with my own eyes,” replied the beggar. “I stood in the store, and cried and lamented in the most heart-rending manner, and protested solemnly that my wife and baby would be starved to death, unless Mr. Palm should assist me. The book-keeper refused my application, but then I cried only the louder, so as to be heard by Mr. Palm. And he did hear me; he came out of his hiding-place and gave me the ten florins I asked him for. Here they are.”